Problem Child
by intergalacticbooty
Summary: Dean Ambrose is a problem child in academics and attitude, or so Roman has always been told. But he thinks there's something more there. A small, lost boy who simply needs someone to actually give him a chance. High School AU. Contain mental illness, bullying, mentions of drug and child abuse, and more warnings inside. Reviews highly appreciated.


_**Author's Note: Since 'The Room' will be finished in a chapter or two (which I am currently working on), I thought I'd post the first chapter of my next new fic. Warning as this will contain mental illness, drug use, ableism, child abuse, underage drinking, and more. I hope you all enjoy and as usual, please leave a review. Your feedback is what keeps me going!**_

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Dean Ambrose was a problem child. At least that's what Roman and Seth were always told by their parents ever since they were small children themselves. They didn't understand it, but it became clearer in middle school.

Harsh whispers shared between teachers and parents alike, thinking the two boys were too ignorant to understand, that all the children were too ignorant to understand. But Roman was always diligent and intuitive and Seth was always curious and intelligent well beyond his years.

It wasn't a wonder that they figured out just why Dean Ambrose was a 'problem child'. Mother did drugs and does drugs, messes around with other drug addicts, and Dean is wrong in the head because of it. But he was also naturally a bad kid or so they adults said. Did poor in school, couldn't understand any subject well and was a constant disturbance with teachers taking enough pity and fearing enough at having to have him in their class any longer to give him just barely a passing grade.

Roman remembered quite hauntingly in 5th grade when he first saw a true example of this Ambrose kid being a 'problem'. He always figured the boy to be just quiet, usually kept to himself and the only strange thing he did was rock himself sometimes during lunch.

It was early on in the school year, a little bit of crispiness in the early fall air, but a decent enough heat where most little girls and boys were still wearing shorts and t-shirts. They were in math class, going over multiplication tables to ensure all students had practiced over the summer. Seth had just gotten his first pair of glasses, thick-rimmed and a little too big for his head, but any ridiculing he might have gotten was quickly shot down as Roman gave menacing glares to anyone that dared to even look at his best friend funny.

Once the class bully, a pudgy kid by the name of Kevin, realized he couldn't get to the quite nerdy Seth without going through his taller and menacing friend in Roman, he decided to switch his bullying antics to Dean. Dean who was always forced to sit in the front of the classroom. Roman wouldn't realize until he was older that this was because it was to keep an eye on the troubled and troubling child.

Kevin raised his hand to ask the teacher to sharpen his pencil while working on the math worksheet. The pencil sharpener was coincidentally next to Dean's seat. Dean, who was currently tugging at his messy looking knots of reddish brown curls. It was strange, because despite the school not having a/c, the young boy was dawned in a heavy hoodie and jeans and boots, each article of clothing having a few holes here or there and a few patches of dirt or food or something. He was dirty, always dirty.

The pudgy boy used the contraption innocently enough at first, but leaned over to peer at Ambrose's paper. He snickered to himself for a moment, because the boy only had two answers written down out of ten and one of them was wrong. But has he leant in he got a whiff of whatever was staining the thin boy's clothes. "Peh-ew!" He pinched his nose quickly, making a dramatic show of it. "What gives, Smelbrose?" The classroom erupted in laughter, Seth even chuckling a little until Roman shot him a look.

"Mr. Owens that is INAPPROPRIATE! Finish sharpening your pencil and go back to your seat right this moment." The teacher called from behind her desk where she had already begun grading Seth and Roman's worksheets. Kevin snorted, the little bully. He was the kinda bully who said things because they sounded mean, repeated what adults would say just because they were cruel and he was told not to say them.

"You smell gross cuz your Mom's a whore, right?" The class grew silent then save for a few worried and hushed whispers, the teacher standing up and ready to send Kevin to the principal's office. Roman and Seth shared troubled looks, because even though they headed their parents' warnings, they couldn't help but feel a little bad for the kid. And they knew that particular word was a really, really bad one.

Between them sharing their looks and directing their attention back to the front of the class, Kevin's words had dawned on the other boy and he shot up from his place at the desk, arms flailing. It was a terrifying sight to say the least, his hands pummeling into the other boy's round face. The kids around him quickly moved away, one of the girls, Paige, was directed by the teacher to get help from another classroom.

Roman was startled by the scene of the other children, sure, but it didn't look like anything outside of the normal schoolyard shuffle at first. In fact, he and Seth had had a few play fights that looked similar. But Dean didn't stop, wouldn't stop, his fists wailing into the chubbier kid until there was red. Kevin's nose was bleeding and Dean actually managed to shove the teacher off of him as he continued his assault.

The other boy was sobbing, begging Dean to stop please, that he was sorry, but as Roman stared at the strange boy, he realized there was no way Dean was going to stop. Just blind rage and emptiness in his droopy blue eyes. The look itself was scary, like something out of the late night monster movies he wasn't supposed to stay up and see. But that in of itself wasn't troubling enough. No, what really terrified Roman was when the other boy spoke. Dean never spoke, never. But this time he did.

"Die, die, die!" He started to scream, pounding into Kevin's nose and stomach. "DIE! DIE!" It took two male teachers to pry Dean off of the other boy, the school nurse rushing into the classroom to attend to Kevin as the teacher called a hospital and presumably parents.

The class was ushered into another room, but Roman couldn't get the other boy's voice and glare out of his mind. It had him shaken up, but for some odd reason he was also sad. Kevin was a bully, so he wasn't too sad over him getting some comeuppance. Maybe he was sad because of Dean? For Dean?

Despite all the commotion, Roman had managed to convince one of the teacher's to let him use the restroom. He was certain Dean was still in school, the faculty probably still trying to reach his mother. They never really did or if they did, she was hours upon hours late or showed up in a bizarre state. Or so Roman had overheard.

He decided to sneak around a little bit before he stopped at the corner near the principal's office. Roman peered over and saw Dean Ambrose standing there, a woman with brownish hair and a dress that barely covered her torso with heels that clacked against the lithium school tiles. She had a hand balled up in Dean's filthy hoodie. Roman couldn't see the woman's face, but heard her furious whispering as she clutched tighter.

"You stupid little brat. It's bad enough you're a fucking idiot, but now suspension for fightin'? Heh. J-Just like your deadbeat fuckin' father!" She hissed, but there was a strange slurring to her voice like Roman's parents sometimes got when they had too much wine on New Year's Eve. She reared back and started slapping him over the face. Once. Twice. And Dean started sobbing. "You are walking back to the house and I don't wanna see your face, not at all!" She huffed off, leaving Dean there to sob and rub at his eyes.

Roman wanted to approach him, wanted to say something. He didn't understand everything the other boy's mother had said, but Roman knew a lot of it was awful. Even when he did bad stuff, like getting too rough with his cousins or accidentally breaking his mom's special vase, his parents had never talked to him like that, never.

He almost did walk up to Dean, almost did try and reach out to the boy, but that strange chanting of the term 'die' and fear of being caught by the hall monitor was a big of enough excuse for him to scurry back into the classroom next to Seth.

"Dean is really, really scary…" Seth murmured, pushing his glasses back up against his nose and Roman simply nodded, continuing to work on the new assignment they had gotten.

"…yeah. He kinda is."

The rumors began flying around school after that and the cruelness and harshness only intensified as the kids grew up. They became more aware, more imaginative, but also lacked the tack and innocence many of them had. Kevin kept to himself, but then again most kids did when it came to Dean. No, they just talked behind his back, moved so he had nowhere to sit at lunch, teachers had long since given up on him and sent him to the back of the class, he was in detention more often than not, and it just all seemed to be crashing down for the auburn haired boy. Fight after fight, arguing with teachers and students, and constantly being sent to the principal's office.

Some of the rumors seemed plausible, like the one about him chewing on his own hair. Roman had seen that himself, but wouldn't dare admit that he did it himself, too. When he knew there was a really hard test in a subject he didn't feel good about, he would chew on the ends of his own hair until his mother had it cut. He didn't convince her to let it grow out until 6th grade when he pleaded for nearly an hour straight, saying he wanted it to look like his dad's when he used to be a wrestler. That seemed to do the trick fine.

Other rumors were too farfetched, at least in Roman's opinion. Rumors of Dean taking pills in the bathroom, that he slept in the school parking lot, and that they had someone managed to smuggle alcohol into the lunch room. Maybe there was truth to them, but Roman didn't buy into it. He just felt bad for the kid.

He remembered the last day he ever saw Dean Ambrose, problem child. The middle school they went to required all students to do some type of afterschool activity. All the kids signed up for sports, music, or art. Roman didn't have a creative bone in his body and he was more than a little tone deaf, so he opted for sports. It came naturally to him and Seth, despite all his nerdiness, was a pretty good basketball player.

They usually played inside in the gymnasium, but towards the end of 7th grade, mid-May, it was warm enough to play outside. The gym teacher would oversee them, make sure no one was hurt, and everyone was well hydrated. Normally the water fountain inside of the gym would be enough, but on account of them being outside, Roman was sent to retrieve a clean pitcher and some paper cups from the art room.

Majority of kids switched to sports when they found out they would be able to play outside, so there were only about four kids in the art room. Three were a few girls huddled close together, snickering and making nasty faces over at Dean, who was painting away by himself in the corner. Said corner was close to the cabinet that held the paper cups and pitcher, the sink next to it. After getting permission from the teacher, Roman braced himself as he passed by the other boy.

"'Sxcuse me…" He said softly, opening up the cabinet. He really tried to look away, to keep to himself, but when he turned back around he gasped out. The canvas was a bizarre mixture of dots, dashes, and squiggles. All dark, earthy tones and as Roman turned his head to the side, he could almost make what might look like trees, but he wasn't sure.

Dean tilted his head slightly, before mixing some more black and white together to make a gray hue that he began to use to make a border around the entire picture. "Don't be starin' at me while I paint." The boy rasped and Roman nearly dropped the paper cups then and there. He quickly scurried away a few feet to the sink and began filling the pitcher.

The last thing he wanted to do was be added to the list of kids that Dean got into fights with. The auburn haired boy didn't care about getting detentions or suspensions, so Roman figured it best to steer clear of him. One of the girls, Dana, left her little clique of Charlotte and Emma to come over and was some bubblegum-colored paint off of her brush. "Ew, what is that?" She snickered.

Roman knew she had just transferred over to their school earlier that year, that she didn't really know that you don't say things to Dean Ambrose's face. The Samoan boy was frozen, pitcher half full as Dean turned to face the girl. "'S my painting…" He said it rather softly, almost looking a little proud of himself as he finished the border.

"Well, it's ugly…" She shrugged her shoulders before flicking her still dirty brush at the canvas, pink splashing over some of the green-gray. Dean seemed to hunker down then and Roman finished quickly filling up the pitcher. He fought with the idea of notifying the art teacher, who currently had their headphones on, about what was going on.

"You think 's ugly?"

"That's what I said, duh!" She snorted, then, crossing her arms over her chest as Roman finished up using the tap.

"Hey, listen, maybe you shouldn't…" Roman started, trying to get her attention as he could practically see the younger male vibrating. Dean had been incredibly patient, but he boy was bound to snap if she kept bickering and bothering him. The transfer student paid Roman's warning no mind, however, pushing forward at the encouraging giggles of her friend.

"What are you, retarded?" Oh, no. "You're deaf too, huh? Well, it's ugly. Just like you are. Stupid and ugly." Her friends continued their little giggle fest as Roman practically rolled his eyes. He usually had manners and rarely ever cursed, but the word 'bitch' came to mind at that moment.

Dean turned to face her again there, face red from embarrassment. He seemed so proud of the painting, even if Roman didn't get it, and honestly wasn't particularly rude towards the girl when she asked about it. But now, Roman could tell he was absolutely fuming. It happened so quickly that Roman didn't even register what happened at first.

The scruffy boy took the pallet with all its mushed up gray paint and shoved into Dana's face and hair. The girl practically shrieked as Dean shoved her into Roman's side. He picked up the canvas then, beginning to smash it around the art room. All the girls were screaming then, the art teacher finally looked up and tugging off their headphones.

"Ambrose, hey, hey!" The teacher hollered, trying to calm him down to no avail. Roman could see the blind rage in the boy's baby blues as he smashed the piece of art to little more than firewood. He was bigger than Dean, taller and wider and had muscle even as a young adolescent because of how physically active he was, but even as he tried to grab at Dean to stop from tearing up the art room, he was elbowed into a nose bleed.

Firewood was the operative word here, however, because as Roman pulled Dana away from the destruction to the other side of the room with the other screaming girls and the teacher tried to make his way towards Dean, the boy had retrieved a lighter from his hoodie pocket. "'s ugly, huh? 'm too stupid to know no better, huh? I'm just a fuckin' retard, right?"

He was muttering nonsense, the teacher pleading with him to let go of the lighter, but he quickly dropped it onto the destroyed canvas, setting it ablaze.

The fire caught easily, causing multiple pieces of art and spare wood and oil paints blaze. Dean was in the center of it, completely silent as smoke and flames began to shroud the room. Roman was absolutely terrified, but he wasn't the type to sit still. He practically pushed the other girls out of the room, trying his hardest to splash the water from the pitcher onto some of the slammer fires.

"Reigns, get out of here! The fire is spreading and we need to evacuate the building!" The art teacher instructed and Roman quickly ran, glancing back at the blue-eyed boy with the menacing stare one last time, surprised to find there were tears there. Before he could say anything, however, he ran as fast as his legs could take him. He pulled the fire alarm on the way out, water falling instantly from the ceilings of the halls and classrooms as the smoke and flames pillowed out.

A lot of it was a haze, Roman terrified beyond on all reason as the scent of smoke and burning wood and paint filled his nostrils. He later found out that Dean had jumped out of the school window, the art room having been on the first floor, and when authorities had gone to Dean's home he was nowhere to be found or so people said.

Sufficient to say, Dean didn't come back to school. More rumors flew. Some said he died in the fire that destroyed three classrooms and left the art teacher with a couple third degree burns. Others say he escaped to another country. Some said he dropped out of school to sell drugs with his mom. More and more awful rumors.

Roman should be angry, he supposed, should have joined in on the rumors or picked at the terror that was Dean Ambrose. But he couldn't. Not when all he could see were those sad, droppy blue eyes that seemed to plead to be swallowed up whole with the flames.

It was strange, because Roman had nightmares for some time after the fire, but they dissipated as he finished middle school and started high school with loving parents and visiting a counselor for a few months. But, for whatever reason, on the eve of starting senior year, Roman Reigns dreamt of that problem child. He could almost smell the burnt paint when he heard Seth honking his car outside, willing to give him a lift to school. Roman wouldn't know it yet, but it would almost eerie how appropriate having that dream was.


End file.
